The revitalization of Calw’s city center is a central concern for many citizens and sor a long time, the residents of the city center have also wanted a committee for local design and participation. However, since the “good room of all Calw residents” plays a very central role for the city as a whole and for the center of the city, the city council decided to establish a working group for the city center in order to be able to include tradespeople and citizens from outside the core city.
Mayor Kling took up this resolution and promised the voters to implement citizen participation with the downtown working group, which corresponds to a local committee and focuses on all topics of the downtown.
At the first meeting, more than 50 interested people came together and initially founded four working groups, each of which was to develop targeted projects in the first year that would also have a chance of being realized. Also during Corona, the working groups met regularly and developed projects or ideas, which were subsequently discussed in the municipal council and for which funding was successfully applied for.
In the meantime, the AK Innenstadt has been renamed to the open “Bürgerforum Innenstadt” (Citizens’ Forum Downtown) and is supposed to meet about three times a year for citizen participation and co-determination on topics of the downtown.